


visions are seldom all they seem

by haipollai



Category: Captain America (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Brainwashing, Consent Issues, F/F, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, M/M, Raven King!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 18:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1357360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You think there's something to these silly old stories?"</p>
<p>"They're not silly." Tony gets up in a huff and knocks on the cover of the book. He paces back and forth, hands gesturing as he talks. "There is magic out there. We've lost it thanks to that damn Raven King leaving. But we can get it back."</p>
            </blockquote>





	visions are seldom all they seem

Once upon a time there was a town that the years have swallowed up. In that town lived a boy whose name has been as forgotten as the town's, but his name isn't important and whether the name was lost or destroyed is always up for debate. Names have power and this boy became someone special. He was weak and sickly, that he made it past infancy was considered a miracle.

When he was ten he caught the eye of something else. A man that wasn't a man. He promised the boy strength and power and life eternal. The boy agreed but only if the man would make his mother happy.

According to the story the man laughed at this request but agreed. Something about the boy was special and the man wanted to see him grow.

The man disappeared again and did not come back again until the boy caught consumption that winter. _Are you scared of death?_ The man asked.

The boy's answer echoed his answer from before, he only wanted his mother to be happy. The man said she would be happier if she believed her boy dead than with his fate unknown. The boy again said he didn't care, as long as she was happy. Everything she had done had been for him, to keep him alive when he shouldn't be. If he had to die for her to be happy, he would be willing.

The story says the man laughed again and kissed the boy's forehead. He told the boy that he was so unusual that for him to die would be a waste and the man did not like waste.

The boy was found in his bed the next morning, finally still and at peace. His body was buried in the small graveyard and his mother went on to remarry. She did not live much longer, but her last years were spent in happiness, knowing her sickly little boy would no longer suffer through each winter.

She did not know it was not to heaven his spirit went, if such a thing exists. Instead he went to the palace of the Raven King, for that was the man who had come to the boy. The Raven King's kingdom stretched as far as the eye could see and then further. It was said that not even the Raven King knew his boundaries, which was of course a lie boundaries were as meaningful as names.

The boy aged until he decided to age no more, eternally young and strong, all the weakness taken from him, replaced with a strength that no human could have.

The story said the boy lived happily ever after and became the King's right hand man. It is said that because of him, the Raven King let go of human world, reduced his influence, let humans live as they wanted. He was mediator and counselor and lover.

That was what the story said.

-

"You think there's something to these silly old stories?"

"They're not silly." Tony gets up in a huff and knocks on the cover of the book. He paces back and forth, hands gesturing as he talks. "There is magic out there. We've lost it thanks to that damn Raven King leaving. But we can get it back."

Maria blinks but otherwise doesn't react to his tirade. Everyone grew up with stories of the Raven King and his court but he was only a fairy tale. "How do you propose even starting?" She finally gives in and asks.

"We have to get the Raven King to open the paths back to our world." Tony came back over to the table and flipped through his text again. "There are. Ok, so the Raven King goes off with his boy toy and everything starts to close up but- _but_ there are stories of people moving back and forth, some recorded as recently as a century ago." He opens up a page towards the end. "Here. The Raven King has trickster lords whose domains are somewhere between here and there, so the paths have to let them through. He can't cut them out."

Maria pinches the bridge of her nose. When she'd been asked to see him, this was not what she had expected. Stark is one of their best inventors, always on the crazier side but this seemed too far even for him. "So what, you want to summon a trickster god?"

"They're not _gods_. They're not human but they're not gods."

"Don't those stories involve payments of some kind. Nothing is free. The boy gave up his humanity. There's some story with a woman whose aunt dies." She stands, arms crossed over her chest. "Stark-"

"I can use it," he hisses.

"What?"

"I can use it. The magic. Can you imagine? One of my automatons infused with magic? Able to function semi-independently on an unlimited power source?" His eyes flash but she's not sure if it's genius or madness or some dangerous combination of both. "I just need to get the paths open. I think I found the name of one of them."

"No." She doesn't believe the stories but she knows, everyone knows, you don't say their names.

But Stark doesn't seem to hear her. "The script was old and fucking weird but I had Pepper take a look and she said it's-"

" _No_ "

"Yashua de Winter."

Maria sucks in a sharp breath, waiting for something to happen. She can see in Tony's face he is waiting for the same. The room stays still.

"There's a ceremony too," Tony says after a moment. "I had hoped since well, lots of the stories have them just showing up-"

"Because they're just fucking stories," Maria snaps, angry at herself for believing if only for a minute. She takes a step towards the door but the room seems to spin as if reorienting itself. She looks at Tony but he's engrossed back in his text and doesn't seem to notice. For a split second she thinks she sees someone leaning against the wall behind him but it must only be a shadow. "Stark, this new obsession of yours better not get in the way of delivering. We still expect your plans for the Phase Two missiles by next week."

He waves his hand dismissively so she quickly grabs her coat. It's not fleeing. She was leaving anyway.

The outside air feels unseasonably cold as she sucks in a deep breath.

-

The book is full of stories. He knows that because many of them feature him in some role, once only as a snowflake that landed on just the right dog's nose at just the right time to make the dog angry and tear into it's master. He had been quite proud of that one.

As he watches the man pore over the text, he wonders if he should go and let the King know that someone is digging up old names and setting things in motion.

But he has time after all, and it could be fun to see what else he digs up.

-

The book is left, forgotten after a few hours when Pepper comes down to bring him coffee. De Winter watches them from his shadows and corners, listening in and learning. They throw around names so easily as if they don't understand.

But the world of power was so long ago for them, he realizes they don't. In the meantime though, they've created new power, different power from that which burns inside his veins. He pokes at the toys and gadgets left lying around, wondering why anyone would think this less superior. Everything has a cost though, he has not been here near long enough to understand what the cost of metal and gears and tools are.

So he waits and listens, he has always been good at waiting, the winter prefers to kill slowly after all. That night he takes a closer look.

Stark dreams of fire and death so he simply slips in among the illusions.

"Why do you care about magic?" He asks from the shape of one of Stark's friends.

"I want it," Stark answers.

"Why do you care about the Raven King?" He asks from Pepper Potts's mouth.

"I want to be better," Stark says.

Finally he comes to Stark in his own face, face as white as snow and hair dark as dead wood. "Why do you say my name?" He demands, fingers closing around Stark's neck and Stark's physical body chokes for air.

"Who are you?" Stark gasps but he knows. De Winter can see he knows.

"I am the trickster of ice and death," he sneers, throwing Stark's own words back at him. "You said my name to draw me forth. I am the Winter Soldier and you're a fool if you think I've ever left this realm."

Stark's eyes widen almost comically. "I want the paths open," he gasps. "I want magic again. Yas-"

"You would do better to call me James if you must call me anything." He snarls, resisting the temptation to reach into the man to tear out a piece of his soul in payment. Not yet. Not yet.

"James, I can do anything with magic, I know it. I can be-"

He doesn't stay in the dream long enough to hear the rest. The words themselves don't matter, what matters is the intention, the pure selfishness of the act. He looks down at Stark's body, gasping loudly for breath with James' hand no longer at his throat. "Humanity is so predictable." He sighs and when Stark wakes up, there's no more sign there was anyone else in the room.

-

Maria takes a seat across from Fury's desk, waiting stiffly as he reads through the report. There isn't much to it, she knows because she wrote it herself. An argument that perhaps they should look elsewhere for a weapons developer.

Finally he closes the file and leans back in his chair to look at her. "You think this magic thing is a waste of time?"

"Sir?" The question throws her off for a second, but she quickly focuses again. "Of course it is, why bother with magic when we know a bomb works."

"We do know how magic works though. Or we have some idea."

Maria gapes at him. In her years working for SHIELD there has been no mention of magic as a tool. Nick opens up a locked drawer and pulls out a file labeled classified and slides it over the desk to her.

Of course SHIELD has those studying magic. Even if it was only based on stories. Maria doesn't know why she's surprised. The file is small though, and she opens it to find what looks like a list. "Names?"

"There is power in a name, _Hill_." Nick smirks at her. "It's said the Soviets had Winter under their thumb for decades through the careful use of a name. We've tried to summon them under controlled conditions but no success yet."

She thinks she hears a laugh, like a breeze, but they are inside so she shakes it off as her nerves getting to her. "Considering the stories, that sounds stupidly reckless. Sir." She doesn't believe. She won't believe but she has fallen into a madhouse where everyone around her suddenly seems to.

Nick laughs and shrugs. "I was never in the vicinity but no harm has fallen to those who said the words."

Maria looks again at the list. There are five names, each with a short description underneath, she recognizes one as a variation on the one Tony had said earlier. "What if-" She feels wrong for suggesting this. "It's just that the names are off? Close but-"

"But not exact? It's been considered, but with so many variations, doesn't make sense to really try out the possibilities." Nick shrugs. "Tell Stark to stay focused on his weapons, he has to deliver what he promises. Outside of that," he stands, a clear dismissal and Maria gets to her feet. "I don't give a damn what he does."

"Yes sir."

She doesn't know why but one name on the list seems to stick in her head. One of two woman on the list, Sharona Carter. Maria isn't sure why but it stays even though it feels wrong. She sits in her car at the end of the day, ready to head home and still the name is there.

"Not Sharona," she mumbles, not sure why this bothers her. She doesn't believe. "Sharon? Sharon Carter?"

For a second she thinks she sees someone in her rear view mirror, a beautiful blond woman but then she's backing up and the feeling is gone.

-

According to some of the stories, the Raven King might have once a man. A boy who had caught the eyes of the fae, back when it was easy to move back and forth or perhaps the child of a fae and a mortal. The stories were more unclear about where the King came from, only that he learned to fly and speak with birds hence his title. Some say he could even become a bird and travel swiftly wherever he wished.

Wherever he came from, he was without question the most powerful being to exist. The stories make that clear.

Do not go after the Raven King, he will eat your heart.

-

Maria doesn't know why but sleep has been elusive the past week. She wakes up feeling as if she's spent the night running around or dancing. Her dreams are vague and chaotic when she wakes up, but when she's in them, it feels more real than reality.

It feels like reality is the dream.

The blond woman is there, natural as anything in the door to Maria's bedroom, or running from her down the hall. Maria always follows, outside of herself and not in control like whenever she dreams. Eventually the woman runs through a mirror, which is no longer a mirror at all but a door to a dirt path lined with trees. Maria thinks she can see the sun far away through the leaves and birds watch her as she steps through.

"Who are you?" She demands of the woman.

"So caught up on _names_ , why do you need a name?" From one angle her clothes look out of a period drama, and another they are a fine tuxedo and yet another she is in a leather jacket and jeans.

"You have to be called something."

"I am called many things. _You_ can call me Carter. How about that?"

Carter takes her hand and pulls her down the path and as if Maria's body is not her own, she follows. In each dream she follows. The path leads to a wrought iron gate which stands open for them and dirt becomes brick. Around them there's the buzzing of people under the soft strains of a violin. She has the sense of being in a palace but they are still outdoors.

Carter pulls her to a larger group of people who are dancing. Maria feels like she's stepped into something out of date and out of time.

"Dance with me," Carter says. It's not a question, Carter expects Maria to fall into step.

"I don't-"

"Lies. You can't lie here, not under a raven's eyes." She looks towards a small stage from which rises a tangled and knotted tree where a man sits as if on a throne. His eyes are dark and piercing but he smiles when the man beside him leans into whisper something. In her dream she knows this is the Raven King despite there being nothing inherently king like about him, no crown, no scepter and she has been brought to his court.

The man behind the Raven King, tall and fair, steps away and makes his way through the crowd as if drawn by Carter's stare. Others stop and reach out, touching his sleeves and hands as if seeking benediction of a king. He smiles but doesn't stop until he reaches them.

"My lady," he bows to Carter. "Who have you brought with you?" His focus turns to Maria and he holds out a hand. "May I?"

Carter pushes Maria towards him. They seem to move impossibly fast. They don't say anymore to each other until he decides to move on and returns her to Carter. He bows low before disappearing again into the crowd, appearing again on the dais beside his king, leaning low with his lips touching his king's skin.

Then Carter is pulling her again into the dance and the rest of the world spins away.

She wakes up again in her own bed feeling exhausted and sore as if the dream were real and this world is the dream.

Every night for a week and she stumbles through work, drinks too much coffee all to last until the next night. Wondering if Carter will be back, if she'll wake up. Knowing without knowing that she's been sucked into a world she doesn't believe in.

-

Winter comes to the King during the day, pacing, feet loud on the floor. The King sits at the edge of the dais, watching and waiting. He has lived for centuries, he is nothing but patient. Not even the cold, slow death that Winter brings compares to his patience. "They want to summon us back," he finally hisses, ice on his breath. "They want to trap us again."

"They won't."

Winter spins on a toe and there's a sharp crack as of an icicle shattering but the king moves first, his cloak spilling out behind him. Red and wild as wings of a hawk or fabric stained in blood. "You-"

"I know." He grins, a row of white teeth against dark skin. "I know." He keeps one hand on him and turns to his partner. "Bring in everyone."

-

Maria finds Tony hunched over something in his lab. His shoulders sag from exhaustion as if he hasn't slept since she was last in his lab.

"I think you were in my dream the other night," Tony mutters, half to himself, half lost in his designs. "Something with dancing. Don't remember much. Kind of a shit dream to be honest."

Maria tries not to let her surprise show, doesn't give him anything but a shrug. "Let me guess, you prefer wet dreams?" He shoots her a smirk and she can see it in his eyes. The way sleep pulls on him and the way he fights back against it. Struggles to stay awake and grounded in this world. She grips her travel mug tighter. Wonders if he sees something similar in her. "Fury wants to know if you have the gun designs he's requested."

"What? Oh yea, of course." He waves vaguely at a table off to one side. "Finished those like last week." She follows where he gestured and finds them exactly as he said. Even printed out neatly and labeled. Pepper likely had something to do with that. She gathers them up and looks back at Tony. From this angle she can see better what he's bent over. It looks like a cube, with strange carvings on them. Not a weapon at all.

"What are you working on?" She asks, not sure she wants an answer but she's supposed to be aware of Stark's projects.

"It's a trap." He sneers down at the cube and twists it around in his hands. "I'm going to trap them, trap their power. Unlimited energy. I don't know enough to power my weapons? A city?

Maria wants to argue that this is pointless. A waste of his time. Trying to trap something that doesn't even exist.

She doesn't believe except- (except every night she dreams and wakes up feeling lost. Maybe this is insanity.)

"Fury says just make sure you get your assignments for him done on time," she says and turns to leave, the file clenched tightly in one hand. She feels a little bit like she's floating as she walks, like she's not quite in her own skin but maybe an inch to the left.

_You should kill him_ comes a whisper in the air, from the ducts or inside her own head. _He is a waste of time_. Maria pushes the voice aside and puts one foot in front of the other. But wherever the voice comes from, she can't deny the appeal. She feels like a babysitter, coming here once a week to make sure he produces and is on task. While in the meantime he plays his stupid games, makes traps for creatures that don't exist.

-

There is no dancing in her dreams that night. Or not the kind she has grown used to. Instead there is only Carter, nude, pressed against her. Her lips are warm, like the last of a summer breeze. She moves with purpose and experience and Maria gives in.

Carter whispers mine against her breasts, her stomach and thighs and as her tongue teases inside her, Maria whispers back yours. She can't hear the laughter over her moans.

-

He remembers his own name, though the stories say he doesn't. He only tells it to one other. To a man of golden hair and warm skin, a man born in warm summer and doomed to die then except for his interference. Sam traces vines over his chest, letting the summer air mingle between them. His summer, his crown.

"Do you think they will?" He murmurs, eyes half closed, enjoying Sam's touches. Sam remembers the boy he met so many years ago. Too thin and frail and too noble for his world of death. His body thrums with magic now. To be cut off from this world would be a death sentence.

Sam bristles at the thought. "Trap us?" Sam asks, scratching his nails over Steve's stomach. He grins darkly. "We will tear them apart. Sharon has already begun."

Steve smiles and twists them so he's on top. Their clothes are gone with less than a thought, bare skin against bare skin. "Then the job is as good as done."

Sam tangles a hand in his hair and pulls him down for a kiss so they're pressed together, head to toe. "That is why she's my favorite of my generals." Steve nips at his lower lip. "Don't worry, you're my favorite in other ways."

-

Maria feels rested for the first time in weeks. Calm and purposeful. She stops at Starbucks before reporting to SHIELD for the day. A beautiful blond woman with flowers woven into her hair comes over to her table, leaning close with a teasing smirk on her lips. Maria knows her. "Call me Sharona," she whispers. "My Maria."

"You-"

"Shh." Maria's throat closes up and no sound escapes. She looks in horror at Sharon. "You gave yourself to me. You're mine now. It's ok. I'm a good mistress. You could belong to one of the Barnes'. At least the girl is sweet but spring isn't always a kind season." She takes one of the flowers from her hair and tucks it one of Maria's buttonholes on her jacket. "We will speak later."

She kisses Maria's cheek before she leaves but the second she's gone, Maria doesn't even remember the meeting. She stares down at the flower, not sure where it came from but makes no move to remove it. The thought doesn't even occur to her.

She wears it into SHIELD, to Nick's office. Fury isn't there but she takes the flower off and leaves it, tucked behind his computer.

When she steps out again, she doesn't remember and stares in confusion at the hallway before hurrying down to her own office. Something is wrong but every time she tries to think of what or why, it slips away. Like deer into the mist.

And she doesn't believe. She refuses.

At her desk, she buries her head in her hands, terrified over what might have happened.

-

Sharon doesn't like to kill with poisons. They send a message but feel cowardly. Instead she sits on Fury's desk and waits. The flower sits in her palm, her key into the room through all of his wards and locks. Maria Hill might not believe, but Nick Fury takes no chances.

"What are you?"

She looks up at him and smiles. "I am the Raven King's General of the Fall." She stands, letting him see armor and sword and shield. Letting him see blood and the slow death by frost as the autumn ends.

He holds up a cube. Nothing special about it at first, six sides of plain metal. She sees the carvings next. Old runes and glyphs. "You can't touch me creature."

"Is that iron?" She asks curiously, reaching out to tap her finger against a side. There's a faint sense of burning and she looks down at her fingertip. The mark disappears almost immediately. "Clever. I assume Stark was the key to that. But not enough."

"It is mine," comes a hiss in her ear.

"Winter has joined us. You've met him before," She says conversationally. James crouches on the desk, dark hair in his eyes and he seethes with anger. She hops onto the desk beside him, letting her legs swing over the edge. In Fury's hand, the cube freezes over until it cracks and explodes as if hit with a bullet. For a second Fury's shock shows in his face before returning carefully to neutral. "Your toy could hold almost anyone else of our kind. Maybe."

"Will you kill me?" He doesn't sound concerned but they're not fooled.

"No," James answers. "The King orders the walls shut again."

Sharon holds up the flower. "You didn't design that silly toy. And with it gone, your scientists won't again. Except maybe one."

"He should never have said my name," Winter says and the threat underneath is clear.

She can see the protest forming on his lips, the requests for a truce, or an agreement to save his precious deathbringer. But they're already gone. Leaving nothing but the flower. A lingering reminder that this wasn't a dream and he won't be made to forget. A lesson must be learned.

-

Fury stares at it after they disappear. There was a coldness to the air with Fall and Winter at his desk but it's gone now and he knows he's alone. The flower is an aster. He's researched them before, flowers of the fae according to mythology. 

He crushes it under his palm and fishes out a lighter to set it aflame. They won't come back the same way, but he refuses to take the chance.

He goes to get Hill, he has to get someone to Stark's though he doesn't know what they could do at this point.

-

Maria makes her way carefully into Tony's house, following her usual path down to his lab. Except as she steps through the door she is no longer in Tony's lab but back in the hall where she danced with Carter before the king.

This time there is no one on the dance floor with her, instead they stand pressed to the walls, whispering between each other and the King sits at the edge of his dais, the blond man sprawled over his chair. This time the King wears a thing crown of gold with red jewels from one angle and like a crown of feathers from another and a hawk sits on his wrist in place of a scepter.

Maria doesn't bow or kneel.

"The walls will be sealed again Maria Hill," the King says. "Your world doesn't need our magic. Mixed with your own tools, all that would follow is death."

"What do you want with me?" She demands.

"Keep an eye on your people. The wall can be opened from both sides." He leans back on his elbows and the bird pushes off, flying in lazy circles above them. "I sealed us off so many years ago. It wasn't easy. The bleeding must be stopped before life is gone."

"I don't believe in you," she whispers.

"Pity,"

The man in the throne stands and sits down next to the king, leaning close to whisper to him. They sit like that for what feels like hours, whispering back and forth. Lips close enough to kiss. The hawk comes back and lands on the blond's shoulder as comfortable as if with his other master. Finally the king stands and gives one last order.

"Return."

And Maria is back in Tony's lab, looking at him bent over his bench. Someone else moves her hand, reaches for a screwdriver. She is outside her body again. Floating alongside as someone else moves it.

"I could let you do it," Sharona whispers in her ear. "Let you become a cold blooded killer for a cause you don't even believe in." Time seems to freeze, neither her nor Tony move. She can see Sharona out of the corner of her eye. "You knew my name but I made you forget. Just like he'll now forget James' name. He'll forget the cube and he'll forget his unnatural obsession." She moves around to stand in front of Maria. "The King has let me plant something deep within you though. If he brings it up again, drive a blade through his neck."

Maria blinks and she's back at the door to the lab. Tony is hunched over his desk, working away at something.

"Fury wants to know if you have something new for him yet."

"I-" he pauses as if he was going to say something else but shrugs. "Yea think so. Maybe. One second. You guys are so damn demanding all the time. Don't you have scientists of your own to harass." Maria pulls up a chair, letting his whining carry on on its own.

Something is missing but she doesn't know what and lets the feeling pass.

Maria doesn't believe in childhood stories.

(Except that night she dreams of a man crowned in feathers flanked by four. She tries to run but there is nowhere to run to.)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Once Upon a Dream  
> This was was gonna be much different but has been in my wip folder for easily like a month or two so idk what was gonna happen anymore


End file.
